I need purchase advice, yes, another "what do I do?" thread...

[junebughunter]

So here's my status. I had every intention of buying a 15" powerbook before the big intel announcement but of course now I have my doubts. I need a laptop. I am ordering something Augest 1st whether it's a powerbook or PC. I've been b**ching about going Mac for the past 2 years. I'm finally ready to buy (actually need to buy).

Am I actually going to see any performance gain by owning a Powerbook rather than an up to date PC Notebook?

I've got about $1,600 to spend. and with a student discount I can get a 12'' Superdrive PB and a 20gig iPod for $1,590 or I can walk into bestbuy, buy a PC notebook with 512mb ram, and an AMD64 3200+ (or get a mobile processor and spend a few hundred more) for $1,049, the only downside is that I am still stuck on windows.

I need a laptop, is the timing too wrong to go Mac?

I will be using the laptop in live performances with my band with sampling software such as Kontakt etc I've been using a desktop PC for rehearsals, but we are booking gigs and lining up small tours in the upcoming months.

[Brad]

Right now the PowerBooks are a bit lackluster compared to other top-of-the-line PC notebooks with regard to raw speed. They'll perform well, but they won't blow you away.

There's much speculation that the PowerBooks will be upgraded soon, though, especially since they're past the usual update period. So, it's really too soon to tell you either way. I'd say at least wait until we see that update before making up your mind.

Of course, there is the whole "Mac" thing about it. That's really hard to put a price on something like this that has the potential to improve your general productivity and greatly ease the general stresses of computer-using.

I have an older 1.25 GHz 12" PowerBook and I absolutely love it. I use it daily in class and at home and I don't have any complaints about the speed. Admittedly, I'm not a hardcore gamer or a benchmark-whore or anything of that sort. I do a lot of programming (both compiled and interpreted), math, simulation, writing, and Internet stuff on it as well as tinkering in Photoshop, Illustrator, Cinema 4D, Final Cut, and other multimedia apps from time to time. It handles everything very well and multitasking is always a breeze, but I'm not out to set any render-time or compile-time speed records.

[junebughunter]

I can't wait much longer than augest 1st so unless there is a definitive rumour going about for an update I'll have to make a purchase.

Can anyone give me any hope about an update or convince me (honestly) that going to a powerbook is right

[Franz Josef]

Don't know Kontakt so I'll leave that to others with more knowledge there. Think the first question is "Do you want to switch to Macs?" - provided ths apps you want to use are Mac-firendly, the overwhelming view here would be you should switch - it's a different world.

Assuming you do, the timing shouldn't in my view be affected by the Intel news. A 12" PB bought today will be supported for a very long time and there's a large user base in place.

[atomicbartbeans]

Simply put, once you've owned a Mac, you'll never want to buy another Windows computer again. :)

[Brad]

Also, go reread the latter part of my post. I was editing it while you replied. ;)

[junebughunter]

Well the things I will be doing on the powerbook aren't extremely demanding but headroom is always nice. I am actually a programmer by day. I work for a company called Bridge Technologies, we have an invoicing application primarily used by diesel fuel pump repair shops called Service1. I am kind of leading the switch from using an Access database ( :no: ) switching to a MySQL backend and eventually changing the front end to using the Mozilla and XUL. But I'm a musician by night. On top of all that I am a DJ and I typically have 2-3 DJ gigs a month (I am currently using DJ Traktor studio on a desktop PC and hooking that up is a PITA, that is another motivation for the laptop). I am in a band, we are new and just setting up our first series of gigs (as I stated). On top of that I have a studio which is starting to become an indie record label unintentionally. (seen here http://gallery.junebughunter.net/Galleries/Rehearsal%20Room%20Setup/12%20all%20done.jpg)

I'm a busy guy, and I will be using my laptop a little and a lot to do all of the above things.

Will a 1.5ghz PB do all of this nicely and reliably?

Another big question I can't seem to find the answer to is when plugging in the 12'' to an external monitor will it (a) Allow me to use dual monitors and (b) still limit me to 1024x768? I found the answer to this here http://download.info.apple.com/Apple_Support_Area/Manuals/specs/powerbook/L29912A_EN.pdf

[Ryan]

I have a refurbished 867Mhz Powerbook 12" and it runs terrifically. I use Garageband once and a while, and though its no speed demon, it works fine.

The more recent models should be even better. If you need it, buy it.

[junebughunter]

I just talked to a friend he has a

1.67ghz
15" with 128mb vram
Superdrive
80gb
1gig memory

for $2,100

That's a pretty good deal, I might be able to front the money for that. What do you guys think?

[Franz Josef]

It's a very good PowerBook and official list price is $2.6K

[Luca]

I was going to suggest a 15" PowerBook but I noticed you had your $1600 budget... for what you're doing, a large screen (while on the road, obviously you can hook it up to an external when you're at home) is going to be a godsend. If you can stretch your budget, do so.

Apple also has this one for $1699 from their "Special Deals" section:

15" screen
1.5 GHz G4
Combo drive
512 MB RAM
80 GB hard drive
64 MB VRAM
Airport Extreme
Bluetooth 2.0
Backlit keyboard

[junebughunter]

I got my buddy down to $2,000 free shipping and of course no sales tax

I'd basically be getting the fastest Powerbook currently available, the only thing it doesn't have is the 100gig drive which I don't have a need for anyway.

I can get the student discount on this stuff so I am saving about $325 and not getting a free iPod mini which is fine with me.

Is $2k a good enough deal?

If for some reason this doesn't work out that $1,699.99 15" is looking pretty good too. I've got until Augest 1st to think about it, but I do believe I am in fact moving to Mac

[Luca]

$2k is a very good deal for that setup, assuming he's taken good care of it. If it's scratched up, has a dead battery, has marks on the screen, or *shudder* has stickers all over it, you should talk him down some more. But assuming it's only very lightly used (which it must be since the machine is at most six months old), $2k is a great deal.

And when I listed those specs for the "lower end" 15" PowerBook, it reminded me just how nice a machine that model has become. It now ships with the same amount of RAM (512 MB in one DIMM), the same hard drive, and the backlit keyboard. Previous versions often were deficient in all those areas, but this one only has a slight lower processor speed, a Combo drive vs. Superdrive, and no 128 MB graphics option. I remember there used to be less than a $100 difference between the higher 15" model and the lower 15" model with BTO options to make it similar to the high end one.

[junebughunter]

He says no scratches at all, it's 2 months old. Has all original Documentation, Packaging and software

[thuh Freak]

Right now the PowerBooks are a bit lackluster compared to other top-of-the-line PC notebooks with regard to raw speed. They'll perform well, but they won't blow you away.
i got a 15in not too long ago. don't know how it compares to windows LTs, but it screams. almost too much speed. two days ago i compiled from source a full arm-elf toolchain (for ipodlinux), in only a few hours. it gets really really hot though. comparable heat to a dell inspiron i have.